Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #19 – Review

By Joss Whedon (writer), Karl Moline (pencils), Michelle Madsen (colors)

The Story: After being doublecrossed by Fray and her sister, Buffy struggles to find her way home while Future-Dark Willow moves her plans to their final stages. Present day Willow, with the help of Kennedy, prepares a spell to bring Buffy back. All while Xander and Dawn fight off an army of frog-looking men with the help of the woodland creatures. It’s an action-packed issue with a lot going on, so don’t blink!

What’s Good: The quality of writing remains incredibly high. The characters, world, and relationships are just as rich as they were on the show. The series really feels like the next logical step in the progression. It makes me wish that Whedon had time to spend some attention to the other comic series based off of his shows.

What’s Not So Good: Three separate and seemingly unconnected stories are a little hard to follow. Xander and Present-Willow’s stories get wrapped up in a handful of pages, while the bulk of the book follows Buffy in the future. It just seems like the spacing is off. Another gripe is Dark Willow. She obviously knows much more of the story than she’s telling, which is fine. But her “you’ll find out soon enough” dialogue leaves without the finding part. But it’s gotten a little tiresome since she’s been doing that for four issues or so without much of a reveal.

Conclusion: Season Eight has been fantastic for fans of the show. However, I’m ready for things to move back to the present. Not that this portion of the story’s been bad. But having two separate stories, two centuries apart from one another was just a little harder to follow than I would’ve liked.

Grade: B

-Ben Berger

Buffy The Vampire Slayer #18 – Review

By Joss Whedon (writer), Karl Moline (pencils), Andy Owens (inks), Michelle Madsen (colors), Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy (letters)

What can you really say about Season Eight other than “more please.” The move from TV to the comics has been a great one for the series. A story this size and scope would be tough to pull off on television. The budget would be insane, and some of it might be too “out there” for the casual fans. In comics, Whedon has a blank check to let his imagination go wild, and that’s how it should be.

Each issue becomes more and more detailed, requiring you revisit some of these books more than once. That’s a credit to Whedon, not a hindrance because the story is so good it makes you want to be sure you haven’t missed anything. Better still, you’ll probably find some great detail you missed. Because of that I couldn’t really recommend that someone just grab this issue, too much has happened. The story is told in two parts simultaneously. One shows present-day Willow trying to find Buffy, the other shows Buffy in the future helping Fray. My complaint is that sometimes it’s too tough to tell where you are. Obviously, the backgrounds and characters involved tip you off. But on occasion it takes a few panels to be sure.

Karl Moline’s imagination and talent for creature design is put on full display this issue. My favorite is definitely Lorelahn and his tree people. Think of a centaur, but with trees, and that’ll give you an idea of where these guys are at. Another great touch is the arm of fire they have. I had to double-check to make sure they weren’t just on fire. Sadly, as awesome as the monsters look, the humans themselves could use a bit more detail. Buffy and Fray’s sister look very similar, just with different outfits. If that’s intentional, then I’d say it’s a little too distracting for the reader.

Each issue of Season Eight just makes me wish the show was still on. I’m sure certain things would need to be cut if it was being filmed, but the world Whedon has created is just too rich to ignore. His style is specific, and that might be part of the problem that the masses don’t get it. So sadly, for those of us who do get it, we have to wait and hope someday that Joss will be as greatly appreciated as he deserves. (Grade: B+)

-Ben Berger